African Union Scientific, Technical Research Commission (AU- STRC), Abuja is working toward building the capacities of politicians across the African for them to improve on their advocacy, through the policy-making process, for the advancement of science sector.
The Executive Director of the commission, Dr Ahmed Hamdy, disclosed this in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja on Monday.
“Politicians are the policymakers, so we intend to carry them along so we can have people advocating the advancement of the sciences in government to boost good governance.
“This is also to ensure that Nigeria will, in no distant future, be one of the best continents in Africa in terms of Science, Technology and Innovation (STI).
“We are also brainstorming on how best to move from STI concepts to conceptualisation and implementation of these STI concepts,’’ Hamdy said.
The executive director said that the growth of STI in Africa was very vital in achieving sustainable development in the continent.
He said the commission, in a bid to implement its policies, had in the past one year trained over 100 scientists and engineers in various fields of science.
Hamdy urged the government across the continent to continue to support local industries, to accelerate Africa to a knowledge-based and innovation-led economy.
He said the commission had held series of meeting with stakeholders in science sector for them to communicate issues bedevilling the science sector to government to address them.
Hamdy also said the commission was committed to implementing the Science Technology and Innovation Strategy for Africa 2024 (STISA 2024) at all levels of the AU member states.
“The STISA-2024 is one of the core functions of the AU-STRC and it is very important to implement the several programmes and projects contained in the policy manual at all levels of the economy, not just the science sector,’’
NAN reports that the STISA 2024 is a policy analysis adopted by AU in 2014, outlining the key socio-economic priority areas African governments must collectively address through scientific research and development.
It is one of the first of 10-year (2014-2024) incremental phasing strategies that respond to the demand for STI across various socio-economic and development sectors in Africa, embedding STI concepts into these sectors.